We ride onward toward the North through the twisted trees. The old branches on the trees are gnarled and seem to reach out like arms. The forest reminds me of back home but this one has a sinister darkness to it. The shadows beneath the trees seem mysterious and I half expect to see spirits materializing at any moment. I know there is evil magic here and things that I don’t want to see. I feel as though I have ridden into a dream. Nothing seems real here. It is slow going in the forest. The trees grow close together and the long branches have to be pushed aside as we go.
The trees eventually began to thin out and its easier to ride. There are mountains silhouetted against the horizon and I keep moving in that direction. The scenery changed from dense forest to rolling hills. It’s a relief to be out of the dense trees where I had first seen the man in a suit. He had a murderous look in his eye and I had been stressed out at the prospect of seeing him again. The sky is deathly quiet and growing darker even though it can’t be much past noon. Dark shadows are falling in the mountains ahead and there is a faint smell of smoke hanging in the air.
Chapter 8
The forest eventually closes in again with clearings here and there where tree stumps are all that remain. The trees are larger here and grow to great heights. The canopy is so thick in areas that light is unable to filter through. I stop to rest in a small clearing. Moss and lichen cover the stumps and some tall shrubs are overtaking the smaller stumps. It’s impossible to see for more than 100 feet between clearings and the lack of visibility makes me restless. I am gnawing on a piece of sourdough bread when I hear a commotion in the distance. The sound of flapping wings can be heard long before I see them. There’s a deafening whishing sound that’s moving quickly in my direction.
I quickly pull Jast into a thick bank of trees and when I’m satisfied that he is hidden I creep to the edge to see what’s going on. I hope that the moss I have rubbed all over myself and Jast has hidden our scent. It’s a trick Jen’s dad had told us about on one of many camping trips. He said that the elk could catch human scent from great distances and rubbing with moss or other forest scent make it more difficult for our scents to be picked up. I never thought much about it at the time but it may be useful now. There are several winged creatures flying not far from where I am hiding. They seem to be in a hurry and are soon out of sight.
Relieved, I make my way back to Jast and put my saddlebags back in place. There is a well-worn trail in the forest and I deliberately avoid using it. Instead we make our way a few hundred feet away and find a small trail that is likely used by deer. We hadn’t ridden more than a half hour and I noticed some black liquid in the form of a handprint on a tree.
Dismounting, I walk over to the tree and the back of my hand to scrape some of the substance off. I bring it to my nose and smell to be sure. There is no doubt its blood and probably fresh too.
The sound of a waterfall can be heard from somewhere ahead of us. We must be close to a stream of some sort or at least a pool. The forest seems so serene. The smell of pine sap and fresh water has always been soothing to me but why do I feel so afraid?
Making our way through another few acres of thick trees I begin to smell something. When we break out of the trees into a small clearing the smell is absolutely putrid. I can feel my gag reflexes twitching and have to swallow several times to keep the vomit from coming.
My mouth is dry and I am feeling numb with fear. If I don’t get a grip I won’t survive this place. I mentally prepare myself for what is coming as we ride forward.
The odor becomes more intense. I know we are close to something horrible as the foul odor hangs heavy in the air. Then I see the source of the smell.
A man’s body swings from a tree. His skin looks like leather that had been peeled back to reveal tendons and a tangle of arteries. A part of his arm lies a few feet off. The bone snapped like firewood and ripped from his body. His innards trail down to the ground and steam rises from them. The man twitches and a gurgling sound is coming from his mouth as he aspirates in his own blood.
The yellow bowels glisten in the daylight as they are still wet from the body cavity. His skin hangs down from his body like a coat that had been shrugged off. The sight is so hideous that I sit in the saddle as though entranced. The branch the rope is tied to groans as though in protest of the atrocity that has occurred.
Could this be one of the horsemen I saw running last night? The sounds of the chanting and screams come to mind and I am filled with guilt. Why didn’t I do something to help? I start to swing out of the saddle to go to the man. Jast is dancing wildly, snorting and tossing his head. I have to steady him in order to get off and still he will not stand to be dismounted. All of a sudden I remembered the letter from last night.
Things are not what they seem so you gotta be always on guard. Evil may come in the disguise of good and what seems dark may contain light. When all else fails look within yourself for the answers.
Something does not seem right. I get back in the saddle and twist the reins around the horn. Taking my bow off the back I hold it I my left hand a pull an arrow out of the quiver. I close one eye halfway to set my target and nock the arrow in the center of the string. The string quivers as I pull back and the arrow flies. It quickly pierces the man’s heart. His groans cease and he swings quietly from the tree. I hate to leave a person hanging from a tree but it is too dangerous to get out of the saddle to cut him down. Besides things are not what they seem here and it may all be a grand illusion.
The first signs of dusk have come and I need to make my way to the summit of the mountain to find a place to camp for the night. A blue light appears on the horizon. It grows larger and lingers for a few minutes and then fades away. I have kept my fear at bay but it now seems to be closing in on me.
The suddenness of coming upon the dying man has hit me like a ton of bricks. I can’t help but wonder what Lizzie meant when she said I was both spirit and body? They wouldn’t have said anything to me if they didn’t want me to figure it out. What reason would they have to keep important things from me?
My insides are clenched tight. My life depends on finding the answers to the pieces of the puzzle. What advantage is there in being both spirit and body? How does the 7 fit into this? How can I break through the illusions of this matrix and find out what my path is?
The thoughts swirl in my mind and I realize that Jast has taken me to a cave. It is hidden well and seems the perfect place to stop. My mind is tired and I need to sleep. Maybe after some rest I can sort everything out and figure out where to go from here.
My head is thumping from an intense headache as I lead Jast into the cave and unsaddle him. My hands are all thumbs as I struggle to loosen the girth and pull the saddle from his back. Each movement makes me wince in pain. I try and rub my temples to reduce the pain but it doesn’t stop. I shake my sleeping back out and arrange it near the cave wall and pull the saddle to the top. Once my head burrowed into the sleeping bag I pull the end up over my face. My mind is growing foggy and I can hear voices in behind the veil. They are trying to tell me something but I cannot understand. I am fast asleep within minutes of my head hitting my make-shift pillow and dreams are carrying me away. I am going to a time in my life that has long passed. The past and future are but illusions on a linear time board. I will soon learn they are there to learn from and are clues to the pieces of my puzzle.
Keys are found in many realms. You may cross over into hidden places and times past to find them. Listen for what cannot be heard. Train your sight to see that which is unseen. You may walk into the unseen to find the hidden. To find the path, look back into the past, and make old things new again.
It’s l ike listening to a conversation behind a closed door. I used to have these “episodes” when I was a kid and a doctor had told my mom I had an overactive imagination. He said that kids who experience trauma can make up imaginary friends or alternate worlds in order to cope. I had taken medications for both “audio” and “visual” hallucinat
ions for several years and then they stopped all together.
I remember how angry Gramma June was when she found out about the medication. She told me never to talk about the voices or visions again and the doctors would leave me alone. I hated the pills and the embarrassment of being labeled “mentally ill” and tookGramma June’s advice to heart. People were afraid of me and wanted to keep me with the “Status Quo” and make me conform like everyone else. I was not like the others and because of that was labeled “mentally ill” or even “evil”. Deep down I knew they were wrong. I was being manipulated into losing my true self. In losing that, I lost sight of my destiny, and my path in life was hidden.
I learned early on just how dangerous it could be if people knew you were “different”. The truth of the matter is that the very things that people hated about me are the same traits that made the Shining Ones chose me. I am a survivor, and used what mental resources I possessed back then to get through life, or so I thought. In reality the only limitations in my life were the ones I put on myself. I was too beat down to see through the illusions all around me.
It all comes rushing back like a wave crashing down on the beach. I can almost see the swirling gray mist that swallows me up as I walk through it. There is a door that is almost translucent and when I touch the handle it opens.
The door opens to a valley. There are green fields and the fragrance of wild flowers drifting on the breeze. The lane turns into a small road that takes me out to a dusty road. I take a left on the road and walk until I reach the top of a gentle hill. On the other side is a village. I can almost smell the lavender that grows in pots in the town square and fresh bread cooling on racks at the bakery. Laughter floats through the air and I can hear adults talking leisurely as they sip coffee at tables outside small cafés.
I walk down the hill and recognize giant pots filled with lavender and vines creeping down the sides of houses. There are purple flowers making a show against the deep green of the vines. The streets are cobbled with stones that are set so tightly together that it is like a solid surface. There is an old man setting out an open sign in front of his café. He gives me a warm smile and tips his hat. His silver hair shines in the sunlight and then his cap once again covers his hair.
I notice a woman with shoulder length hair that curls in a gentle wave. She is sitting at a table with a red and green checkerboard cloth over it. There is a vase of wildflowers in the middle and a small basket of bread off to one side. The woman is wearing jeans and a beige blouse with sleek red leather shoes. She is thumbing through a magazine and stops to get something from her purse. Her eyes are violet and her skin as smooth as milk. She looks up from her red leather purse, and raises a hand, as though waiving to someone.
She smiles in my direction and I expect the person she is waving at to come up to her table at any moment. Then she has a puzzled look on her face.
“Ivy. Would you like to join me for lunch?” She stands up, walks in my direction and looks directly at me. Her hand falls on my shoulder and she motions for me to sit down at the table. I walk to the table and stop for a moment to look glance into the glass of the café window. I am barely more than a kid and I am wearing the jacket I had stolen from Melinda so many years ago.
I stand there looking at the woman like a dumb thing. She pulled out a chair for me to sit down. Taking her seat, she reaches across the table and places her hand on mine.“Ivy. Are they forcing you to take the medications? You may lose your ability to come here and need to prepare. Write down the things that have happened in your diary and hide it in a safe place. Never let your locket out of your sight and when the time comes June will show you the way back”.
The woman seems alarmed and holds me close to her chest. I can sense she is holding back tears as she embraces me.
“Be strong Ivy. Fight them as long as you are able. Once the door is closed it will be very difficult to open again. There is a long road ahead and you must expect the unexpected”.
Her eyes hold such warmth and she seems to look into my soul. I belong with her but can’t remember the connection. Who is this woman? What connection do I have to her?
My heart is pounding and I struggle to keep the vision open. The last thing I see is the woman growing smaller and smaller in the distance. Then the mist is gone and I am back.
The door of understanding is starting to open. June is connected to everything in several ways. Her letter holds pieces of the puzzle to my life. I have an ominous feeling that ifI don’t put the puzzle together I may never leave here. To find your path, look back into the past, and make old things new again.
My mind is taking me back, back into my past, to places I don’t like to remember. Back to the beginning of my other life which started at the end of my childhood. To the secret places I had tried to hide from for so long. The secrets of that time nearly destroyed me. Keys are found in many realms. You may cross over into hidden places, and times past, to find them.
I must live in the now and prepare for what is to come. Living in fear does no good and only peace of mind will show me the way. I must see what is before me through the window of my soul for the veil is open if only I can believe.
Chapter 9
I have been no stranger to trouble. It’s as though there has been a cancer eating away at me my entire life. I have had much inner turmoil, fears and anxiety for as long as I can remember. I had learned to let things outside my control dictate my life.
I have been fascinated with the spirit world since I was 11. Catching shadows out of the corner of my eye or hearing muted voices were daily phenomena. I believed that these things were bad because other people did not experience them. I had the ability to move beyond this dimension but was unable to break free from what other people believed to be right. Being attuned to the spiritual side of life was considered a weakness of mind.
When I turned 11 people said I was disturbed and that I invented stories to get attention. Behind my blue gray eyes and long-hair was a frightened child. The vivid memories of my baby brother lying dead in a casket, with his angelic face and blond curls, had to be forgotten if I was to survive. Except, that is, for the small white tooth we tucked under his pillow for the tooth faerie when he was 7. I had put a dollar in its place and put the tooth in a small velvet bag and hid it. I just couldn’t let go of his tooth and it gave me the sense that a part of him was present with me. I had learned to slip through my miserable existence in the here and now to the other side where things were normal. On the other side I had a whole different life and things were good there. Beautiful people with shining faces that helped me forget the bad things.
To be dead was to lie down and sleep forever- or so I thought-until I went to the other side. I had failed my little brother and older sister and wanted to fall asleep forever just as they had done. There is a reality just beyond what we can see if we have an open mind. On that side I learned to forgive. I had learned to hate people and forgiveness was not something that came easy to me. Forgiving someone is to set your-self free from the past. You see, the person I needed to forgive, was me. Until I could learn how to do that I would not be able to move on with my life.
When I was a pre-teen I loved to go to an old used bookstore in town. I would take a bus and walk to the historic part of Gig Harbor. In the heart of the town was an old bookshop. It was owned by a kindly old man and his wife. The Mrs. would sneak books into my backpack and give me candy when I came to the shop. They always had a smile or kind word for me. It was a weird world I lived in but they were lights in my dark life.
Reading took me out of myself and each book was an adventure. I literally would find myself in far off places and assumed I had fallen asleep. I never explained to anyone why books meant so much to me. They gave my mind flight and I was able to find my way to the other side.
People said I was an old soul in a young body. The truth be told, I knew some old souls and reveled in spending time with them. Old people always drew me to them. I appreciated th
e wisdom they held and they understood that the lines between life and death were fuzzy and there are no rules.
The old couple from the bookstore invited me to their house for tea one day. I took the bus to old town and then walked a couple of miles down the waterfront and turned at the 3 way stop to go up the hill to the big house. At the end of the driveway was a formidable gate that was set in a large stone arch that connected to a wrought iron fence that ran the length of the property. Jasmine snaked up the sides of the stone fence giving it the feel of a very old place.
The gate groaned as I pushed it open and let myself through. The driveway was packed with cobblestones and neat hedges flanked either side. The walk to the house seemed longer than it should and twisted this way and that. I passed a small Koi pond with a gazebo and eventually passed a barn. It was good sized stone building that had two sets of green doors on either side. Beyond the barn were white fences that gleamed in the sun.
Light was falling on the expansive lawn in front of the house. The lush grass reached as far as I could see and then disappeared into the trees. It never struck me as odd at the time that a place like this existed in the city limits. In truth, though I didn’t understand it at the time, the property on the other side of the gate was just a normal sized lot. Not much bigger than one of the small row houses that stands by the Walmart and yet it stretched out for a mile once I was inside the gate.
Their house was a large green Craftsman with neatly painted boards crisscrossing across the front. There was elaborate white fret work hanging down along the roofline. The house sat off to the side beyond a stand of pine trees. The scent of salt air drifted up from the harbor and intertwined with the fragrance of freshly cut grass from the lawn. I felt immediately at home. It was as though the house was welcoming me.
Underworld (Dark Passage) Page 9